


Polar Reversal

by LinksLipsSinkShips



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe- Modern College, Christmas, Friendship of convenience, Link is a nerd, Link is out of his comfort zone, M/M, Opposites Attract, Rhett is a frat boy hipster
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:55:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21634012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinksLipsSinkShips/pseuds/LinksLipsSinkShips
Summary: When Link's friend Stevie drags Link to a party, he's not on board at all. In an unfortunate turn of events, he misses his flight back home to North Carolina, and he's forced to swallow his pride and ask for help from a strange hipster frat boy he can't stand.
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	1. Analytical Mechanics

The last thing Link Neal wanted was to go to a party. For one, he didn’t even  _ like  _ parties, and for two, his idea of a good time was hanging out and programming a robot to do his bidding. Tig, his advanced-model not-quite-AI, was quite adept at fetching beers from his mini fridge and she could almost, not-completely (mostly because he hadn’t gotten her lifts to work yet) make him some Cup Noodles. Friday night? Hell yes.

Except freakin’ Stevie had other ideas. “Come on, Link. You can’t just sit here and play with your stupid android all night.”

“Robot. Tig is a robot. Androids can think for themselves. Robots cannot. She can do what she’s programmed to do,” Link corrected.

“Whatever. Android. Robot. Your little thing—” she waved her hand dismissively “—is not the way to spend the last night before winter break. Come  _ on.” _

“Oh, yeah, and the way to spend it is getting drunk with a bunch of kids you’ve never met? Right. I’d rather stay home, thanks.”

Stevie rolled her eyes. “Your lack of social life is astounding to me.”

“I have a social life. I talk to you.” Still, he considered it. Was it more fun to go, suck it up, and spend an hour at her damn party? Or was it better to listen to her bitch about  _ not  _ going to the party all night long? He sighed and shook his head. “Fine. One hour. One freakin’ hour and then I’m coming back here and eating ramen and watching Die Hard.”

“Fine. I’ll take it.” Stevie had a smug grin on her face.

“If that stupid smirk is you telling me that you’re going to talk me into more than an hour there after I’ve said one hour? You can fuck off.” He flipped her off and tugged his tee shirt off over his head, changing into something a little bit nicer. “What kind of party is this anyway?”

“Your standard frat rager. Beer pong, darts, pool, and a whole hell of a lot of booze,” she said.

“Great. Sounds like exactly my kind of scene.”  _ Not.  _ The whole thing sounded absolutely miserable, but what Stevie wanted, Stevie got. She knew that by now.

Stevie had abandoned him within minutes. Helpful. She’d seen some girl from her Lit class and given Link a hug, disappearing into the crowd with her.  _ Of course. _ Link, being the social butterfly he was, didn’t know anyone else at the party. Why would he? This was the dumbest possible event to go to. Parties had never been his scene. He’d skipped over fraternity life completely, much to his stepfather’s chagrin. His highly specialized program limited his housing to a specific floor of others in his program, and he’d paid extra for a single room using his loan. He’d deal with the expense later. For now, he didn’t have to spend a ton of time around people he didn’t know or like.

Until now, stranded at this party. Anti-social didn’t begin to scratch the surface of Link’s personality, and he was stuck at a party, abandoned by his best friend. Great. This was exactly how he didn’t want to spend the night before winter break. He scanned the room, looking for something to do. Mostly, he wanted to get out of his head.

He heard cheers coming from one side of the room, and he followed the opposite of his instinct. Going home wasn’t an option, but following the sound? He wasn’t sure what else to do, so he stood up and headed toward the noise, watching as a crowd of people surrounded a table.

“Alright, who’s up next?” A tall, lanky hipster guy who looked like he’d fallen asleep on a bench and woken up three weeks later with an unkempt beard, toeing the line between the looks of a professor and a hobo, glanced around. “You! Glasses kid. You played yet?”

Link looked around. Nobody else was wearing glasses.

“Yeah. You.” He pointed directly at Link.

“I don’t play.” He didn’t know what the hell they were even playing, but whatever it was, he didn’t participate.

“You do now. Come on, let’s get you set up.”

People started placing partially full cups on the table in a triangle formation on a ping pong table. Oh. Beer pong. Yeah, Link  _ definitely  _ didn’t play. Still, this guy wasn’t giving him the choice.

“Alright, you first,” the guy told him.

“I don’t even know how to play.”

“Don’t worry. Chase’ll show you. He’s on your team.” Chase? Who the hell was Chase? He glanced around back and forth as a shorter guy came closer.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Link answered. This was all so ridiculous. What did he get himself into? The last thing he wanted was to even  _ be  _ at this party, and now he was in the midst of a game he wasn’t prepared for.

“Okay, so the whole idea is we toss ping pong balls into their cups, elbow has to stay behind the line of our table. If we sink it, one of them drinks. If they do, one of us drinks. We do this until they lose,” Chase said.

“Hey, now,” the guy called from across the table. “ _ If  _ we lose. Don’t get any big ideas over there.”

Link nodded. “So I just… pick up the ball and…” he tossed it, and it landed directly into one of their cups. Cheers erupted around him, a chorus of “whoaaaaa!” from the guys nearby.

“Yeah, man. Just like that,” Chase said, clapping a hand on his back. Link tried to take it in, watching as the tall, lanky man in front of him chugged the cup the ball was in and crushed the cup under his foot on the ground right after. Seemed wasteful, if Link was honest, but then again, that was another issue he had with parties. The amount of single-use plastic waste was astounding.

The tall guy picked it up, tossing the ball across the table. The ping pong ball hit the rim of a cup, bounced, and rolled onto the floor, between people’s feet. “Damn.”

Link turned to Chase. “What now? Do we drink?”

“Only if he got it in our cup. Now, I throw.” Chase did, and the ball sailed over the cups and bounced off of the tall guy’s chest. “Dang it!” He griped. “Don’t worry, David sucks at this game. We’re good.” A guy approached the table that Link had to assume was David, and he picked up the ball, tossing it in effortlessly. “Well, shit. You want to drink the first one or do you want me to?” Chase asked.

Link shrugged. “I’ll do whatever you prefer.”

Chase laughed and picked the drink up, plucking the ball out and chugging it.  _ Sanitary. _ He passed the ball to Link. “Your turn.”

Link threw it and sank it easily. “It’s just math,” he whispered to Chase. That was all there was to it. Essentially, all he had to do was throw the ball at the right angle and it would land in the cup every single time. Link could see how the game would progress in difficulty if the other team was good or already intoxicated, because calculating where to throw the ball would be harder, but Link was stone cold sober and didn’t face that same limitation. David drank.

Unfortunately, the tall guy — whose name Link  _ still  _ hadn’t figured out — managed to rebound off of another cup into a cup and Link was forced to drink. He did, drinking it in slow gulps and swallows. “That is absolutely vile.” Link didn’t mind beer. Of course he didn’t. He’d programmed a beer-grabbing robot after all. But this? He presumed the drink tasted much like urine would. Absolutely heinous.

“Yeah, well, cheap beer,” Chase laughed, grabbing the ball and throwing it. The tall one was forced to drink again. Judging by the slight swagger in his step, this wasn’t his first round of this game. That, or he’d already started to drink before the game began, which was probably more likely.

The game didn’t take as long as Link anticipated. Within fifteen minutes, nearly all of the cups had been cleared from the tables and Chase had explained the re-racking rules twice, they were each down to one cup. “So basically, sink this ball, and we win.” Link nodded. He could do that. Or, he thought so anyway. He’d had a little more beer than he was used to in a ridiculously short amount of time. The tall guy was better at this than he had anticipated.

Link squinted his eyes, moving his head to try to stop the room from spinning so much, and threw the ball. The ball bounced off.

“No worries,” Chase said. “They don’t win unless they land it in our—” Too late. The ball landed in the cup with a soft splash. “Okay, well. Drink up, I guess.”

Link grabbed the cup and fished the ball out, drinking the contents and dropping it on the floor, crushing it with his foot. His reluctance to single-use plastics was worn under the feeling of tispy warmth sinking into his limbs. “Good game,” he said, turning to Chase. “Sorry. I’m not much of an athlete.” Before Chase could answer him, Link was already staggering away to find Stevie.

“Stevie!” Link called. There was no logical way she could hear him over the loud music, or through the pulsating bodies, and she was too short for him to effectively see her. Still, he had to try. Mostly, he wanted to get out of here. He’d had more than enough to drink and was exhausted of any sort of energy from partying. He didn’t want to stay here. So, he kept weaving his way through the party.

Nothing.

“Link!”

Link had been searching the party for twenty minutes when he heard Stevie’s voice ring out from a table somewhere near the kitchen of the house they were in. He followed the voice to a table in there. “Hey. I’ve been looking everywhere.”

“You having fun?” she asked. A girl had her arm draped over her shoulder, the same one from before, and Link assumed the night was going well for Stevie. 

“Not even a little bit. But, I did play beer pong, so I’ve effectively socialized enough for one semester,” Link chuckled.

“Oh, wow. You’re like… drunk drunk,” Stevie commented.

“I’m tipsy,” Link corrected. Drunk? Certainly not.

“Here. Have some cocoa,” she said, pouring some into a cup from a thermos on the counter.

Link accepted. Something without alcohol would be great. As the liquid hit his tongue, two things happened simultaneously. First, Link realized his naivete in thinking hot cocoa at an absolute rager would be non-alcoholic, because it seemed like it was more alcohol than not. Second, it was absolutely scalding. “Holy shit!” he shrieked. “Oh my god! It’s so hot!” He fanned at his tongue, feeling the scalding burn.

“Got it!” A voice yelled, bounding across the room, gripping Link’s jaw and tilting his head back. Link didn’t have time to process what was happening before someone was spraying whipped topping into his mouth out of a can.

Link swallowed, tilting his head up and closing his mouth. “What the actual fuck are you doing?”

“Putting out the heat.” The tall, lanky man from the beer pong game still hadn’t released his jaw, and it was making talking difficult for Link.

“Whipped cream is not a fire extinguisher,” Link responded. “I’m fine. But perhaps you and your friends should consider not keeping scalding alcohol in a thermos?”

The man shook the can again and offered the tip toward Link’s mouth. “You sure you don’t want one more squirt?”

Eyeing Stevie from around the tall guy’s arm, he saw her mouth “Play nice.” Link sighed and relented, opening his still-singed mouth, allowing the man to pump whipped cream onto his tongue. For a moment, it provided some relief. Not much, but… something. “Thanks,” Link said after swallowing again.

“Anytime, man. I’m happy to help.”

Link gave him a courteous nod, then looked at Stevie. “I’m going home. You following?” Against his better judgment, Link picked up the cup, dipping a finger into it. The spiked hot cocoa was cooled off now, and he held it out to the tall man, who topped it off with whipped cream, which helped make it drinkable. Link tilted the cup back, chugging it down, and set it on the table.

Stevie giggled and turned back to the girl beside her. “I think I’m staying. You can make it back alright?”

Link nodded. “Yeah. I’m good.” He made his way through the pulsating bodies, finding a path to the front door of the house. He looked both ways, seeing the glow of campus to his right. His dorm must be that way, and he’d find it when he got there. Link staggered away from fraternity row and the open party that they were having. He briefly wondered if he could get Tig to bring him Advil. Probably.

* * *

Collapsing into bed, Link pulled the blankets over his head. He set his alarm on his phone so he would wake up in time for his flight in the morning, tucking it under his pillow, and he dozed off in an alcohol-induced haze.

* * *

The first thought Link had when he woke up was that the light hurt. The second thought was that there was far too much of that light for it to be six in the morning a week before Christmas. He groaned and rolled over, swatting for his phone and wondering why the alarm hadn’t gone off yet. When his hand wrapped around it, he saw the black screen. Dead. Oh  _ fuck _ . “Tig, what time is it?” he asked. He was thankful he’d built her with a programmed clock instead of relying on something like Alexa or Google to keep him abreast of the time.

“The time is ten fourteen in the morning.”

Shit.

Irresponsible Stevie and her ridiculous frat party that she just  _ had  _ to go to? All of that cost Link his flight, and now he was completely, utterly fucked.


	2. Machine Learning

Pacing in front of the row of seats, Link quirked his ear up. He’d been placed on standby on a flight and he was praying to hear his name. Maybe, just maybe, he’d make it home in time for Christmas. “Attention passengers of American Airlines Flight 193: Unfortunately due to weather in the layover city of Chicago, this flight has been cancelled. Please proceed to the ticket counter for further instructions.” Link felt every ounce of resolve in his body tense and then weaken. So much for the standby flight.

He tugged at his hair and walked to the counter. “Is there anything else you can suggest?” he asked a ticketing agent.

“Not particularly. Most flights going east are cancelled due to weather, or completely full.” She tapped a few keys. “Your only other option is Atlanta, and even the standby line is far too long for you to have a chance.”

He sighed. “Thanks. Think I’ve got a shot on another airline?”

“If our flights through those cities are cancelled, that’s an airport cancellation. All airlines would have that same issue.”

“Thanks,” Link repeated. “Happy holidays.”

“You too, sir.”

No way home for Christmas? That didn’t exactly scream a happy holiday to Link. Short of getting an Uber all the way across the country, he wasn’t sure what to do. He grabbed his bag and rolled toward the exit. His mother was going to be extremely disappointed. His head hung low as he stalked through the airport, slamming into someone head on. “Shit. Sorry.” He glanced up. Oh.

He looked up even higher, head tilting up to see the man towering a good six or seven inches above him. With a beard.

“Hey! Beer pong guy! How’s the tongue?” The guy stuck his tongue out and waggled his own. Of course he’d run into this guy in the middle of a crowded airport.

“Fine,” Link snapped. “You going somewhere?”  _ Stupid question, asshole. He’s in an airport with a suitcase. _

“Yup. Heading home for the holidays.”

“Hope you aren’t going east,” Link said. “Good luck.”

“I am! How’d you guess? I’ve got a flight at noon to Chicago, then catching a connecting one out to North Carolina.”

“No, you aren’t,” Link said.

“I am. See?” The guy pulled out his phone and pulled something up on the screen, furrowing his brow. “Oh. I guess you’re right. My flight’s been cancelled.”

“Yeah. Told you. Everything going north is.” Link hated being the bearer of bad news, but he guessed better him than this guy.

“Welp. I guess I better be finding another way home, hadn’t I?” he grinned. “Bet the buses and trains are full, too. What would you say?”

“Probably. It’s Christmas,” Link said.

“Then I guess I better get driving,” the guy said, smiling. He fished his parking stub out of his wallet. “I guess I didn’t need that long-term pass after all,” he laughed.

Link watched as he walked him walk away. His chest felt tight as his phone buzzed, and he struggled to pull it out of his pocket with the portable charger cord looping around his arm and getting caught on his jacket. His mother. Of course. Asking what the status was of his next flight. He started to text back, but then looked up again for god-knows-what reason. The man he’d met at the party, and again today, was almost out of sight.

Link Neal didn’t believe in fate. Something like fate wasn’t rational. But the fact that his mother was texting him, wondering how much longer until she’d get to see him for the holidays… it caught him off-guard. “Hey!” He yelled, running after the guy with long legs. Legs that made him hard to catch up to. Legs that kept propelling him forward. “Hey you!” Helpful. Not knowing the man’s name in an airport of all places.

The guy didn’t even turn around.

Link raced after him. “Hey! Beer pong guy!” Heads turned. None of the ones that turned were the one he needed. Link ran faster. “Hey!” He screamed. His legs carried him farther across the airport and he skidded to a halt not far from him. “Beer pong guy!” he yelled even louder.

Finally —  _ finally!  _ — he turned around. “What’s up?”

“You said you’re headed to North Carolina?”

“Yup.”

“Can I, uh. Could I hitch a ride? I’ll pay for part of the gas.” Link looked at the ground, not loving the fact that he even had to ask. He didn’t know anything about this guy. Hell, he didn’t know his name. What he  _ did  _ know, he didn’t exactly like. They didn’t run in the same circles. Link was a junior, and he’d never even  _ seen  _ this guy before. Clearly, they weren’t meant to interact.

But now Link needed a ride, and this was probably the only shot he had at getting one. With the dorms closed for Christmas break, and the heat off, going back wasn’t an option. His choices were to swallow his pride and ask this strange hipster for a ride, or find some crappy hotel to stay at for the duration of Christmas break.

“Yeah,” the guy said. “Come on. Follow me. We’ll have to take the shuttle over to long-term.”

Link kept hold of his bags and followed behind the guy in front of him.

“So what part of North Carolina are you going to?”

“I’m supposed to head to Buies Creek to see my mom, but honestly, if you even get me to the state line, she can come get me from wherever,” Link said. “Or hell, just get me  _ somewhere _ .”

“No shit, Buies Creek?”

“Yeah,” Link answered.

“I’m headed to Lillington.”

Link couldn’t have found a closer ride than that. “Great.”

* * *

The shuttle was crowded. Logically, Link knew it was because they weren’t the only ones changing their holiday plans, but he imagined the full shuttle also had a lot to do with holiday traffic in general. He dreaded the thought of a cross-country drive with a complete stranger, but his mother’s texts had gotten more insistent and sad, and he finally texted her back to say he’d caught a ride with a friend from school.

Of course, that had only led to more questions, like whether or not this friend would be joining them for the holidays. Obviously, that wasn’t happening. Link couldn’t imagine spending any longer than he had to with this guy. And he still hadn’t bothered to ask his name, either. They weren’t sitting anywhere near each other on the shuttle. In fact, they were both standing on opposite ends of it, crammed in wherever they would fit. The guy was hunched over a little, too tall for the shuttle, but also lanky and able to curve his body around others to fit the space he was given. Link stood his ground and held the handle, eyes locked on the guy. Not because he wanted to look at him, but because if the guy left without him, he was  _ fucked. _

As the guy stepped off of the shuttle, Link left through the nearest door, hand on his bags, and he was hoping nothing had gotten left behind. If it had, he wasn’t able to fetch it. There were simply too many people.

He followed the guy to a beat-up truck. “Alright. Here’s Hank.”

“Hank?”

“The truck. Hank. This is him.”

Link cocked his head to one side and nodded, watching as the guy tossed his own bags into the bed of the truck without much care.

“You gonna put your stuff in my truck or are you going to keep standing there looking at me weird?” The guy asked him.

“I’m putting it in there. I just…there’s a robot in there. I have to use care with it.” He lifted his bags carefully into the back, keeping his backpack with him. “Funny. I learned your truck’s name before I learned yours.”

“Oh, shit, sorry.” He brushed his hands off on his pants for no apparent reason, as if there were dust or dirt there that Link couldn’t see, and offered a hand forward. “I’m Rhett.”

“Rhett?”

“Yeah.”

Link nodded. “Hi, Rhett. I’m Link.”

“I know,” Rhett answered. “We, uh. We had English Lit together last semester.”

That was news to Link. “Oh. Sorry, I uh. I’m forgetful, it turns out,” Link said. Now he felt bad for not knowing the guy’s — Rhett’s — name. He should have, clearly. Rhett knew his. Link glanced at the cab of the truck. Were they going to stand here introducing themselves all day, or were they going to get on the road?

“You said you got a robot in there?”

“Yeah.”

“For class?”

“No. Personal use.” That sounded strange, Link realized in hindsight. Like Tig was some kind of weird sex toy or something. She most certainly wasn’t that. Gross. But he’d said it anyway, and it sounded strange, and he had to roll with it. “I mean personal as in she — it — brings me beer or makes ramen or tells time.”

“So like a servant?”

“No. Like a robot. I’m sort of testing the limits of h— _ its  _ software so I can see if there’s some way to develop some kind of AI version that can do it without being directed,” Link said.

“Oh. Okay. But it’s like… important and breakable?” Rhett asked.

“Yes.” Obviously. Link wouldn’t have used the care he did with Tig if she weren’t incredibly breakable. And he would have probably just left her on campus. Nobody took up valuable luggage space on Christmas vacation if they didn’t absolutely need to, but Tig was important. Like a dog or his arm.

“Alright, then.” Rhett pressed his hands to the back of the truck and hauled himself up into the truck bed, grabbing straps and securing the bags in place. “I’m not too worried about my bag flying off, but if you’ve got some kind of fancy robot in here, then I guess we better secure the bags, right?”

“Your call,” Link said. He was itching to get on the road. This was a long-ass trip as it was, and Rhett seemed to be dragging it out minute after minute.

“Alright. Looks good.” He tugged the straps. “Yup. These bags aren’t getting out of here. You ready? Need to take a leak or something?”

Link looked around at the busy parking lot. “I think the time for me to do that was in the airport, wouldn’t you suppose?”

Rhett smirked. “Oh. Right. Well, then I guess we’re all set, aren’t we?”

Link nodded. This was going to be an absolutely ridiculous trip. If his phone was accurate at all, they were one hour down, 37 more to go.


	3. Practical Robotics

Rhett drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, singing along with the music. Link glanced over at him, then turned back to look out the window. Only an hour into the ride, and he was bordering on having a headache.

“You’re quiet,” Rhett said.

“Sorry. Not really my kind of music,” Link answered.

“Oh. Sorry. I can turn it off?”

Link shrugged. “Nah. Your car, your tunes.” He was acutely aware that Rhett was doing him a great service, even if he disliked how the ride was going. If he was an ass to Rhett, he was sure it would be a much longer drive, if Rhett let him stay in the car at all. So, Link wasn’t setting out to make waves. Still, Rhett turned the music down and stopped drumming his fingers on the wheel. Link almost felt bad for making him feel like he had to.

“So, uh…” Rhett started. He didn’t finish.

After a minute, curiosity got the best of Link. “So, uh?”

“So… I don’t really know you all that well. And we’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

Link nodded, chewing on that thought for a moment. “I’m not so great at small talk, is the thing. We were probably better off with the music, actually.”

Rhett threw a glance his way, smirking. “I fucking  _ hate  _ small talk. That’s perfect. So, big talk. What do you think is a bigger threat to humanity: a black hole sucking the entire earth into a vacuum, or a meteor hitting and causing a mass-casualty event?”

“Neither. Single-use plastics are clearly the biggest threat. Not that your house seems to know that, given the amount of plastic cups you had around.” Oops. Link’s plan to  _ not  _ be snarky had already failed.

“No, yeah, I agree. But try getting an entire fraternity to switch to cups they’ll actually have to wash after a party. Not going to happen,” Rhett said, snorting. “Honestly, I even suggested that cans would be better, but that adds expense and nobody wants to foot the bill.”

“Make it bring-your-own-drink, then, and have a policy that it’s recyclables only.” Link didn’t see what the big deal was, and now he was especially dead-set on fraternities being absolutely toxic. Without a plan to get rid of excessive waste, it seemed they were incapable of making even the most basic decisions. Link resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“You know, funny thing about fraternity events is most people expect the alcohol to be provided.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just saying if they’re that irresponsible...” Link trailed off. No sense convincing him.

“Listen, there’s a lot to be said for fraternities outside of parties. There’s the brotherhood of things, the sense of community, the connections you make that benefit you after college. I have several brothers who were able to find jobs more easily because of their connections made through fraternities.”

“Which cost money in dues, and required clothing, and specific costs like party costs and house fees, and everything else. Things scholarships don’t typically cover. Which means that the job industry is now pay-to-play, requiring fraternity membership to get into careers easier, but then making those fraternities out of reach for underprivileged people,” Link argued. At this point, he wasn’t even as concerned with that. Not that he  _ wasn’t  _ concerned with it. He was certainly too broke to join a fraternity. But now he had gotten on being contrary, and getting off of that train of thought when he was already on the track was hard. Stevie called his contrary moments Link being Link, and yeah. He was being Link.

Perhaps Rhett would end up discarding him at the next stop, telling him to find his own damn way home. He’d be solely responsible for that if he ended up on the side of the road. Still, he couldn’t stop trashing the fraternity life Rhett loved so much, and they weren’t even out of California yet.

“Yeah, that’s true. You’ve given me a lot to think about, Link.” That effectively ended the conversation. Link giving him a lot to think about meant that the time for discussing the issue was over.

Link crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah. And I’m sure it will change absolutely nothing,” Link snorted. “You’ll come out of this trip the same old frat boy you were, and I’ll be the same nerd I am. But hey, at least we managed a cross-country journey together. Like some comedy film that probably has a far larger budget than is entirely necessary so they’ll throw in a tiger or some random-ass thing to justify the money spent.”

“You’ve lost me now.”

“You know,” Link said, “when they make these opposites-attract buddy comedies where two complete opposite personalities end up having to spend time together in a compact space, and they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the whole thing, so to make sure that the amount they asked for is justified, they decide to throw in all these external elements like wild animals or plane rides to nowhere or whatever else.” He was trying to explain this to someone who was probably only halfway listening, if Rhett’s failure to so much as glance at him was any indication.

“What I think you’re saying is ‘we have nothing in common and this is going to be a long-ass drive to North Carolina because we are pretty much set up to hate each other’s guts.’ What I’m wanting you to be saying is ‘you know what would be funny? Putting a tiger in the back of this truck.’” Rhett snorted a laugh and glanced over at Link.

Link rolled his eyes in response. “Do you ever, even a little bit, take things seriously?”

“Oh yes,” Rhett answered. “Right now, I’m taking my job to annoy you to North Carolina and back incredibly seriously.” He smiled at Link. “Consider it payment for the drive.”

“I’ll pay for every dime of the gas from here to there if you shut up for the rest of the drive. And no, just to North Carolina. No back. I’ll find a damn flight back,” Link said.

“Every dime?”

“Every dime.”

“Can’t pass that up.” Those were the last words Link heard out of Rhett’s mouth for the next two and a half hours.

“Hey, uh. Link?”

Link jerked awake at the sound of his voice. Rhett hadn’t been speaking, and with the hum of the tires under him, Link had been lulled to sleep by the sound of silence and the open road. “Wha?” he mumbled.

“I’m gonna need to stop. We’re almost out of gas, and I’m beat, man. I think I’ve hit my limit on driving for a few hours. You ready to take over?”

“And drive your truck?” Link raised an eyebrow at him. They barely knew each other. Rhett hadn’t the slightest clue if Link was a reckless driver or a perfectionist, if he could see well to drive or if he was winging it, if he had a good sense of direction or not.”

“Well, I’d let the tiger drive, but budget hasn’t approved it yet.”

“I don’t have a license,” Link told him.

“You don’t know how to drive? Shut the fuck up, seriously? I thought everybody from North Carolina could drive from the time they were like, ten. Farms and shit.” Rhett reached over and shoved his arm.

Link sat up, rubbing his eyes and trying to wake himself up, replacing his glasses back where they went and staring at Rhett. “I know how to drive. Did I say I didn’t know how to drive? No. I said that I don’t have a license.” Link rolled his eyes.

“Oh, well shit, I don’t care about that. Why don’t you have one?” Rhett studied him seriously and then pulled off onto an exit ramp near a truck stop that advertised food and gas and souvenirs. Souvenirs for what, Link wasn’t sure. They appeared to be in the middle of nowhere at this point. What the hell kind of souvenirs would anyone need here?

“Because I don’t,” Link says, but then he sighs and rolls his eyes. “It’s suspended for driving an illegal vehicle on a highway. I’m lucky I didn’t get arrested, honestly, but I’m not a licensed driver and I’m therefore unqualified to drive your truck.”

“Like a tractor?”

“Like a robot.”

Rhett burst out laughing, a hard cackle that required him to put his hand on his chest because he was laughing at Link so hard. He continued to laugh until he stilled and then said “Oh god, you’re serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Link asked.

“I... I guess I’ve just never met anyone who got a suspended license for driving a robot on a highway. How do you even drive a robot on a highway?” Rhett pulled up next to a gas pump. “And are you still paying for this or have you changed your mind?”

“Considering you’re talking, I’d say you broke the deal. But yes, I’ll still pay.” Link stepped out, not bothering to answer the first question. How does one drive a robot down a highway? By building a big enough, fast enough robot. Which is fine, until it interferes with other vehicles. What is a car other than a type of robot anyway? But apparently, a hand-made vehicle isn’t allowed. Give someone an autobody shop and a beat-up car frame and it’s completely legal to build a car, but call it a robot and build it from scrap metal and give it a certain processor to let it drive on it’s own, then test it’s ability to drive on it’s own at highway speeds, and suddenly you’ve got a problem. Link shook his head thinking about it. He was, of course, perfectly capable of driving. But he didn’t. And at school, he didn’t need to. Stevie could drive, and Link had access to public transportation. Who needed a car on campus? Or, in Rhett’s case, a big-ass truck?

A North Carolinian, he figured, but that wasn’t relevant, nor did it cover all people from North Carolina. Link inserted his card and filled the truck.

“You didn’t answer me,” Rhett said.

“I didn’t realize an answer was required,” Link answered. “But to answer your question, I built a self-driving robotic car and was testing it, and apparently that is illegal without the proper company permits because of all kinds of governmental red tape I cannot afford to fight, so I didn’t bother fighting it.”

“You are absolutely, positively insane,” Rhett told him.

“Or genius.”

“Or annoying,” Rhett snarked. “But also fascinating. I’m grabbing food, and then you’re driving. Think you can teach my truck how to drive itself?”

“Yes, but it would also be illegal, so no.”

“It was worth asking,” Rhett laughed. “You hungry?”

Unfortunately, Link was absolutely famished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to soho-x for beta reading this chapter!


	4. Perception and Behavior

Link picked at his fries. As hungry as he was, he didn’t feel super satisfied by the food options at the fast food place here. He was hoping for... well, he wasn’t sure what. Not this. He realized he was being snarky and spiteful, and that if Rhett had picked someplace better, he would have probably disliked that, too. He frowned.

“Not hungry?”

“I’m eating,” Link said.

“You’re picking.”

“I’m eating,” Link repeated.

“Don’t worry about it. I got no qualms about people eating in my truck.” He smiled at Link, winking. Link wanted to sigh. Seriously? Where did Rhett get off winking at him? He’d never said that was a good, okay thing. But Rhett, Rhett seemed downright set on trying to frustrate him.

Or something.

Link stared him down, ate another fry, and then asked, “why did you offer to drive me to North Carolina?”

“Because you needed to get there. And anyway, you offered to split the gas. I’d be crazy to say no to that.” Rhett took a bite of his burger and looked at Link just as intently. “And, y’know, it seemed like the right thing to do at Christmas.”

Link considered this. “Okay. So what’s the plan then?”

“The plan is, we get in the truck, you drive us as far as you can before we either get exhausted or you get arrested for driving my truck without a license and I tell the officer I never met you before in my life and you carjacked me and I had no choice but to let you take the wheel because you threatened to sic your robot on me.” Rhett stuffed a handful of fries in his mouth.

“Not funny,” Link said. “What’s the actual plan?”

“That’s the actual plan. You drive until you’re exhausted. Then we find a hotel to crash at because like hell I’m driving us across the country without a nap.” He smirked. “Come on, man. You have a look on your face like I’m trying to torture you. Listen. No intended torture here. You’re cool. I’m just trying to get us where we need to go without us ending up... I dunno, missing Christmas or something. As I see it, we’ve got four days to get from California to North Carolina, and I think we’re gonna make it just fine, but you’re going to have to get behind the wheel of the car. You said it yourself. You know how to drive.”

Link considered this and wrapped up the last half of his burger, then reaching for the keys in front of Rhett. “Fine. I’ll go fill up, and then we’ll drive.”

Rhett laughed. “Already filled up, man, while you were taking a leak.”

“I’m supposed to be paying for gas. I don’t have cash on me! All I have is my card. Now I’m going to have to find an ATM and—”

“Dude,” Rhett said. “Chill. I got the first round. You can buy the rest.”

Link exhaled. “Don’t tell me I’m buying gas if you make it so I can’t,” he said softly, feeling uneasy about how kind Rhett was being. They barely knew each other, and what they did know of each other hadn’t exactly been found. Link didn’t know where Rhett got off on being kind to him, because in that moment, Link felt a little undeserving. “I’ll buy you dinner to make up for it later. You ready?”

Rhett crumpled up his burger wrapper and tilted the rest of the fries into his mouth straight out of the carton, grabbing his soda. “Ready.” He smiled again.

Link had to focus a lot more than he recalled when it came to driving. He’d already asked Rhett to turn the music down twice, and his hands hurt from gripping the wheel so tightly.

“You can relax,” Rhett suggested. “I was just joking about throwing you under the bus if we got pulled over.”

“I know,” Link said through gritted teeth. “Driving... takes a lot of focus, I don’t know.” He could feel the tension in his arms and legs, taking note as his eyes darted around between mirrors to take in any potential threats from other cars getting too close or merging without warning or being hidden from his view or whatever else. And for the most part, unless the GPS said he needed to be in another lane, he stuck to one lane, even during a twenty-mile stretch where he was behind a car going 20 under the speed limit, even as Rhett urged him to pass.

“Were you always this cautious as a driver or is this just because you don’t have your license?” Rhett asked him, quirking his head to one side.

“Both. It’s clearly worse now, though.” Link felt uneasy about driving in the first place. He didn’t like the potential danger if they got pulled over, didn’t like being behind a wheel, none of it. For personal reasons outside of this trip, Link preferred being a passenger so his mind could focus on things other than driving. As a driver, your sole focus had to be on the road. As a passenger, your mind was free to be on other things. Somehow, though, he figured Rhett’s mind wasn’t only on driving when he drove. Rhett seemed to be focused on the music and the drive and the weather and conversation and a million things that weren’t driving. Link wasn’t good at that. He was more set toward a singular focus, working on it until the task was complete. And with Rhett’s questions? That was harder. Focus was more difficult when he was trying to answer things as he drove.

“Tired yet?”

“Yes,” Link said. They’d barely gone a third of the distance Rhett had gotten them. They weren’t even out of Nevada yet.

“It’s only six.”

“I’m aware.” Link knew they weren’t anywhere near a good stopping point if they intended to get home before Christmas. Hew knew they had a long way to go yet before they could even stop for the night.

“Think you got another thirty or so miles in you?”

Link glanced down at the speedometer. Barring any slow cars, they were going 60. That meant only another thirty minutes. “Yeah. I can drive a little further.”

“You know you can go 65 here. Just because the sign says 60 doesn’t mean anything.” When Rhett was behind the wheel, he was prone to going ten over, as long as it was safe to do so with other cars. Link was too afraid they’d have an accident or he’d get pulled over.

“The speed limit is 60. I’m going 60.” From a logical standpoint, Link knew no officer in their right mind would pull someone over for going 63, 64 in a 60, mostly because the police liked to account for errors or anomalies in their radar detector, and anyway, Link was a nerdy white guy who they were statistically unlikely to profile against. Logically, he understood. But logic and effort didn’t always match each other, and Link wasn’t willing to take the risk, no matter how statistically unlikely it was. Instead, he got the car to a solid 61 miles per hour, approximately, and set the cruise control. “Happy?”

Rhett snorted. “Good enough, man. Good enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to suspicious-sushi and soho-x for beta reading this one for me!
> 
> (Personal challenge to myself? Finish this one before New Year's... yikes)


End file.
